Wilson – Labour needs to listen to its members

January 02, 2019 10:24 AM

A new poll shows Labour members very strongly support holding a People’s Vote on Brexit.

Poll findings include:

• 72% of Labour members think Labour should “fully support holding a new referendum on Brexit” (67% of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters in the 2016 leadership contest agreed).• 61% of Labour members think “Britain leaving the EU” is the most important issue facing the country (56% of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters).• 88% of members (and 88% of Jeremy Corbyn supporters) would vote to stay in the EU in a referendum which offered a choice between staying and leaving with no deal.• Just 3% of members (and 3% of Jeremy Corbyn supporters) back leaving the EU with the deal negotiated by the Government.• 89% of members (and 89% of Jeremy Corbyn supporters) think it was wrong for Britain to vote to leave the EU.

The figures suggest 88,000 party members have considered leaving the Labour Party because of their disappointment with the party’s policy on Brexit. This figure includes 30,000 party members who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 contest with Owen Smith.

“This poll shows why Labour needs to listen to its members and voters on the most crucial choice facing our country for a generation. An overwhelming majority of Labour’s voters, as well as its members, want the public to have the final say on Brexit and to stay in the European Union. But the leadership has too often hidden behind myths that Labour is almost evenly divided on this issue when the clear evidence from this and other polls shows that it is the leadership which is increasingly out of step with its supporters.

“Labour’s members and voters know that Brexit will harm the NHS, raise the cost of living for workers and make it harder to deliver radical change. Labour’s members and voters know there is no form of Brexit that can fulfil all the promises made in 2016 or offers a deal as a good as the one we’ve got inside Europe.

“Labour’s leadership now has a huge opportunity to be at the front of a popular campaign against the Government’s Brexit deal and make sure the public are given the right to have the final say in the form of a People’s Vote. I urge Jeremy to seize this chance to change the course of history, before it’s too late."

/ends

The polling was conducted by YouGov for the ESRC-funded Party Members Project (Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University)

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